TMSJ 16/2 (Fall 2005) 293-316

HERMENEUTICS OF
THE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON PAUL
Robert L. Thomas
Professor of New T estament

Recent changes in evangelical hermeneutical principles have opened a

wide door for new-p erspective (NP) pro posals on Pa uline literature an d mo re
basically NP proposals about second-temple Judaism. Setting aside the time-
honored ideal of objectivity, the proposals have raised questions about longstanding
views of Au gustine and L uther and of the n ature of first-cen tury Judaism. E. P.
Sanders has b een a major fig ure in raising these q uestions. The questions arise in
part through an allegorical versus a literal ha ndlin g of G od’s OT cove nan ts with
Israel, i.e., through devising a system known as “covenantal nomism.” The NP
system also seeks support through a neglect o f the esta blished prin ciple o f single
versus multiple meanings for a given passage and through disregarding the
importance of imm ediate context in interpretation. The NP builds on an erroneous
base of wro ng-hea ded conclusions ab out first-century Judaism and com mits
multiple hermeneutical errors in its approach to Pauline literature.

*****

As one has appropriately put it, the new perspective on Paul is more
accurately termed a new perspective on second-temple Judaism,1 which inevitably
results in a new perspective on Paul. This new perspective brings to the surface a
number of hermene utical principles that twenty-first-century e vangelicalism
desperately needs to avoid if it is to maintain a high view of biblical inspiration.

1
Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 178. Westerholm writes, “The conviction most central to the ‘new
perspective on Paul’ pertains in the first place to Judaism, not Paul: first-century Jews, it is claimed (in
dependence on E. P. Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism), were not legalists who supposed that they
earned their salvation (or membership in the people of God) by deeds they did in compliance with the
law.”

293
294 The Master’s Seminary Journal

Preund erstanding V ersus Objectivity

Elsew here I have d ealt with the highly significant change that occurred in
evangelical hermeneutics in the 1970s and early 1980s, a change which most
basically incorporated a new first step in biblical interpretation.2 That new beginning
point is the preunde rstanding of the interpreter that then theoretically undergoes
correction as he studies a biblical text. Until the 1970s, traditional grammatical-
historical principles dictated that the interpreter repress whatever opinion about what
he thought the text should teach and adopt a firm goal of letting the text speak for
itself, in other word s, the goal of objectivity. As harmless as the differe nce in
starting points between traditional evangelical hermeneutics and the new evangelical
hermeneutics may seem, it has wrought havoc in the way many evangelicals are now
reading and interpreting the Bible.3
New-perspective proposals offer a classic example of the drastic effects of
preunderstanding on the interpretation of Pauline literature as well as the rest of the
NT. The impact of this hermeneutical p rinciple on new-perspective scho lars is
visible in two areas, in rethinking the interpretations of Augustine and Luther and in
rethinking the nature of first-century Judaism.

Rethinking the Interpretations of Augustine and Luther

A 1977 work by E. P. Sanders in which he advanced a radically new view
of first-century Judaism gave birth to the new perspective.4 The new-perspective
(hereafter NP 5) views Augustine as having introduced an “introspective conscience”
into an interpretation of Paul’s writings, a conscience that was not present in the
writings themselves. 6 Sanders does not see guilt as the main problem with Paul; the
problem Paul dealt with was that of people not recognizing the lord ship of Christ. 7
Martin Luther allegedly erre d the same way as Augustine. As Paul deals with the
problem of circumcision in Galatia, N. T. Wright—another NP advocate— sees the
issue Paul faced as far different from the questions debated between Augustine and

2
Robert L. Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics: The New Versus the Old (Grand Rapids: Kregel,
2002) especially 41-62 on “The Origin of Preunderstanding.”
3
I have elaborated on this extensively in various parts of Evangelical Hermeneutics.
4
E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977). Two of the purposes of the work was “to destroy the view of Rabbinic
Judaism which is still prevalent in much, perhaps most, New Testment scholarship” (xii) and “to
establish a different view of Rabbinic Judaism” (ibid.).
5
The customary abbreviation for the new perspective on Paul is “NPP,” but since the issue has more
to do with first-century Judaism, this essay will use the abbreviation “NP” to designate the new-
perspective position on both.
6
Krister Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 17.
7
Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism 500, 503.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 295

Pelagius or b etween Luther and Erasmus. 8

In essence, Sanders— the godfather of the NP— and his followers say that
Augustine, Luther, W esley, and others have b een wrong in their reading o f Paul.
Such later Christian voices have read into Paul doctrines—justification by faith, the
doctrine of imputed righteousness, and other related doctrines—that Paul did not
teach. That NP understanding of Luther and company anachronistically attributes
to them the more recent development of preunderstanding which affected their
interpretation of Pa ul’s writings. Luther allegedly interpreted Paul as though he were
writing about issues of later times instead of the ones he was ac tually facing.
According to NP proponents, the well-known advocates of justification by
faith—such as Luther and Calvin—imposed their own biases on the text rather than
letting the P auline text spea k for itself.
Such proponents as S anders fail to ackno wledge that a basic hermeneutical
principle of the Reformers, of whom Luther was one, was to exclude their own
biases and follow the principle o f tabla rasa (“clean slate”).9 This meant to study
the text with an open mind in applying grammatical-historical data to arrive at the
meaning intended by the original author and understood by th e original readers.
Sanders and company say that the Reformers failed in the pro cess because of their
preunderstanding of what they felt the text should say. Yet preunderstanding was not
a hermeneutical principle in orthodox Christianity until a time much later than the
Reform ers. 10 It is Sanders’ own preunderstanding of second-temple Judaism that
forced him into attributing p reund erstand ing to interpreters who consciously
attemp ted to avoid it.

Reth inking the Natu re of F irst-century Jud aism

Critique of Sanders’ view of rabbinic literature. Sanders summarizes
his view of Judaism as follows:

On the assumption that a religion should be understood on the basis of its own self-

8
N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 120.
9
R. C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1977) 105. Sproul writes,
“The interpreter was expected to strive as hard as possible for an objective reading of the text through
the grammatico-historical approach. Though subjective influences always present a clear and present
danger of distortion, the student of the Bible was expected to utilize every possible safeguard in the
pursuit of the ideal, listening to the message of Scripture without mixing in his own prejudices.”
10
Ramm describes orthodoxy thus: “The true philological spirit, or critical spirit, or scholarly spirit,
in Biblical interpretation has as its goal to discover the original meaning and intention of the text. Its
goal is exegesis—to lead the meaning out of the text and shuns eisogesis—bringing a meaning to the
text. . . . Calvin said that the Holy Scripture is not a tennis ball that we may bounce around at will.
Rather it is the Word of God whose teachings must be learned by the most impartial and objective study
of the text” (Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Textbook of Hermeneutics [Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1970] 115-16).
296 The Master’s Seminary Journal

presentations, as long as these are not manifestly bowdlerized, and not on the basis of
polemical attacks, we must say that the Judaism of before 70 kept grace and works in the
right perspective, did not trivialize the commandments of God and was not especially
marked by hypocrisy. The frequent Christian charge against Judaism, it must be recalled,
is not that some individual Jews misunderstood, misapplied and abused their religion, but
that Judaism necessarily tends towards petty legalism, self-serving and self-deceiving
casuistry, and a mixture of arrogance and lack of confidence in God. But the surviving
Jewish literature is as free of these characteristics as any I have ever read.11

Through use of his three sources, particularly the Tannaitic literature, Sanders
reaches several conclusions about the rabbinic teaching.

(1) God has chosen Israel and (2) given the law. The law implies both (3) God’s promise
to maintain the election and (4) the requirement to obey. (5) God rewards obedience and
punishes transgression. (6) The law provides for means of atonement, and atonement
results in (7) maintenance or re-establishment of the covenantal relationship. (8) All
those who are maintained in the covenant by obedience, atonement and God’s mercy
belong to the group which will be saved. An important interpretation of the first and last
points is that election and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God’s mercy rather
than human achievement.”12

A closer look at the sources cited by Sanders reveals, however, that Sanders’ reading
of the rabbinic material is totally biased.
For example, he says that election was “totally gratuitous without prior
cause in those being elected ,” 13 which cannot be true. Even he himself acknowledges
three reasons assigned by the rabbis for God ’s choice of Israel, only one of which
said election was totally gratuitous. 14 The o ther two reason s given by the rabb is
involved Israel’s earning election, thereb y making electio n “at least p artially
grounded on the merits of the patriarchs or Israel’s forese en ob edien ce.” 15
Sanders argues that obedience to the commandments in rabbinic literature
is the result of God’s election and that the rabbis included the intention, not just the
outward act, in this obedience.16 Though humans have a tendency to disobey, they
do not have a sin nature that requires divine enableme nt in order to obey. 17 In
reality, howe ver, sometimes rabbis taught that God’s judgment would depend on a

11
Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism 426-27.
12
Ibid., 422.
13
Ibid., 87.
14
Ibid.
15
Guy Prentiss Waters. Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul: A Review and Response
(Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2004) 51.
16
Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism 107.
17
Ibid., 114-15.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 297

majo rity of good deeds. 18 Other times they taught that condemnation would come
on the basis of one transgression.19 Still others said that salvation would result from
one righteous act. 20 The rabbis were in complete disagreement among themselves
on this issue too.
According to Sanders, salvation comes by memb ership in the covenant
com munity and by atonement provided for every transgression.21 Yet the means of
atonement for the rabbis was elusive. Sometimes they said it was through
repentance, other times through OT sacrifices, in still other cases through sufferings
and even through death. 22
W ith such widespread difference s of op inion in ra bbinic literature, only
minimal parts of which are biblical, Sanders has to pick and choose among
conflicting statements to come up with his system of covenantal nomism. For
example, as Waters notices, “In two distinct arguments (‘the rabbis are not
systematic theolo gians’ and ‘there are numero us “fulfillment of one command”
statements as well as “m ajority of deeds” statements’), Sanders dismisses the
significance of the ‘majority of deeds’ comments.” 23 To grasp the inconsistencies
of the rabbis takes no systematic theologian; any pe rson with com mon sense can tell
that a unified system o f belief was none xistent in their writings. Though Sand ers has
provided a fuller picture of first-century Judaism, his interpretation of that evidence
is flawed. When taking into account all the evidence he cites, he has not established
a case that proves Judaism contemporary to Paul was a system based on grace.24 The
origin of covena ntal nomism is therefore traceable to S anders, not to the rabbis. But
such an observation is not nearly as alarming as the way Sanders dismisses the four
canonical Gosp els.

Sand ers’ view of the G ospels. Since the “Sanders revolution” has affected
so many, 25 who is E. P . Sanders? His self-identification is,

18
Waters, Justification and the New Perspectives 42-44.
19
Ibid., 44-45. Waters expresses this in another way: “In summary, Sanders has corrected the
portrait of Judaism as a religion of pure Pelagianism, and has demonstrated that this religion is semi-
Pelagian in nature. In election, human ability, obedience, atonement, and acceptance at the judgment,
rabbinic opinion is universally and incontrovertibly synergistic. Human actions and endeavors have
preeminence over divine grace.”
20
Ibid., 45-47.
21
Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism 147, 157.
22
Waters, Justification and the New Perspectives 48-51.
23
Ibid., 46.
24
Ibid., 55.
25
Wright reflects the opinion of many when he writes, “But the scholar who has affected current
Pauline scholarship more than all the rest put together is Ed P. Sanders, a former colleague of mine in
Oxford, now Professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina” (What Saint Paul Really Said
298 The Master’s Seminary Journal

I am a liberal, modern, secularized Protestant, brought up in a church dominated by low

christology and the social gospel. I am proud of the things that that religious tradition
stands for. I am not bold enough, however, to suppose that Jesus came to establish it, or
that he died for the sake of its principles.26

A person with his perspective of a “low christology” would not, of course, have a
high view of the Jesus of the NT. That expectation turns out to be accurate.
Sande rs’ forte has been his investigation of rabbinic literature. His sources
have included rabbinic (Tannaitic) literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Apocryphal
and Pseudepigraphical writings, from Ben Sirach to IV Ezra. 27 On the basis of these
studies, he conclud es,

By consistently maintaining the basic framework of covenantal nomism [the name

assigned to Judaism’s beliefs by Sanders], the gift and demand of God were kept in a
healthy relationship with each other, the minutiae of the law were observed on the basis
of the large principles of religion and because of commitment to God, and humility
before God who chose and would ultimately redeem Israel was encouraged.28

Stated in other terms, Sanders’ view was that “Judaism in Paul’s day was not, as has
regularly been supposed, a religion of legalistic works-righteousness. If we imagine
that it was, and that Pa ul was attacking it as if it was, we w ill do great violence to it
and to him.” 29 Judaism was rather similar to Paul in its advocacy of grace: “God
took the initiative, when he made a covenant with Judaism; God’s grace thus
precedes everything that people (specifically, Jews) do in response. The Jew keeps
the law out of gratitude, as the prop er respon se to grace— not, in other word s, in
order to get into the covenant people, but to stay in. Being ‘in’ in the first place was
Go d’s gift.” 30
In formulating his opinion about second-temple Judaism, however, Sanders
in his 1977 wo rk conspicuously fails to use the historical books of the NT, the four
Go spels and Ac ts. In a later work, however, he clarifies this omission. In one such
clarification he writes,

We know about Jesus from books written a few decades after his death, probably by the
people who were not among his followers during his lifetime. They quote him in Greek,
which was not his primary language, and in any case the differences among our sources
show that his words and deeds were not perfectly preserved. We have very little

18).
26
E. P. Sanders. Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 334.
27
Ibid., 24-29.
28
Ibid., 426-27.
29
Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said 18-19.
30
Ibid., 19 [emphasis in the original].
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 299

information about him apart from the works written to glorify him. Today we do not
have good documentation for such out-of-the way places as Palestine; nor did the authors
of our sources. They had no archives and no official records of any kind. They did not
even have access to good maps. These limitations, which were common in the ancient
world, result in a good deal of uncertainty.
Recognizing these difficulties and many others, New Testament scholars spent
several decades—from about 1910 to 1970—saying that we know somewhere between
very little and virtually nothing about the historical Jesus.31

Through consistent application of tools of historical criticism, Sanders concludes that

“very little or virtually nothing” in the Gospels is factual.
Scho lars who follow in his NP train entertain similar views regarding NT
historical boo ks. Wright, for example, describes the Gospels as combinations of
“neither simply biography nor simply religious propaganda , yet sharing the main
characteristics of bo th.” 32 He p ictures the following as the current stage in the Third
Quest for the historical Jesus: “First-century Judaism and the Gospels are o ppo site
edges, and all discourse about Jesus must take place betw een them.” 33 W right and
other “questers” alo ng with N P ad vocates exemp lify an extremely low view of
biblical inspiration of the Gospels. The Gospels are at best only on the “edge” of
truth, they say, and are less reliable than rabbinic writings in their portrayal of first-
century Judaism.

The View of Jesus and John the B aptist. Among scholars—evangelical

scholars not exclud ed— that trend of viewing the G ospels as only the edge of truth
is occurring right before the eyes of contemporary Christians and is cause for great
alarm. Now it has affected P auline writings as well as the G ospels. In contrast to
the positive portrait of Jud aism p ainted by the N P, rec all some of the statements by
John the Baptist and Jesus about second-temple Judaism:

• John the Baptist saw many Pharisees and S add ucees com ing to be baptized by
them and called them a “brood of vipers” (Matt 3:7). That characterization of

31
E. P. Sanders. The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Allen Lane, Penguin, 1993) xiii. Note
how Sanders dismisses Gospel descriptions of Jesus because of their tendency to glorify Jesus, but takes
rabbinic writings at face value without recognizing their tendency to glorify Judaism.
32
N. T. Wright. The Contemporary Quest for Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) 73.
33
Ibid., 73. Regarding Wright, Waters writes, “A second reason that one should study Wright is
that he has done more than any other single individual to mediate NPP exegesis into the mainline and
evangelical churches. . . . Wright’s popularity among evangelicals is also due to his general respect for
the integrity of the New Testament. His scholarship on Jesus stands out from contemporary lives of Jesus
and theologies of the Gospels in at least one respect. Wright purposefully approaches the Gospels as
credible historical records, sidestepping many of the source-critical and redactional-critical concerns that
New Testament scholars often bring to the text.” (Waters, Justification and the New Perspectives 119-20
[emphasis added]). Waters’ opinion notwithstanding, Wright—like all other “third questers”—is far
from accepting the historical reliability of everything in the Gospel accounts.
300 The Master’s Seminary Journal

second-temple Judaism hardly fits the description advanced by the NP.

• Matthew 5–7, Jesus’ Sermo n the M ount, whose them e verse is Matt 5:20: “For
I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the
teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” The
Pharisees and the teachers of the law were rabbis. The whole sermon heralded
the apostasy of rabbinical Judaism’s leadership.34
• Mark 2:1–3:6 records a series of five “conflict” stories in which Jesus’
opp onents were the scribes, Pharisees, and/or Herodians. Sanders dismisses
these episod es of Je sus’ disag reem ents with Judaism as having been read back
into the life of Jesus by Mark, a previous author, or the early church.35 In other
words, it is improbab le that the events ever happened and that Jesus ever made
such criticisms of Judaism’s use of the law.
• Mark 7 and Matthew 1 5 record Jesus’ d isagree ments with first-century Judaism
regarding the washing of hand s. Sand ers flatly pro nounces, “D eadly enmity over
handwashing is, I think, historically imp ossible.” 36 He takes issue with Jesus’
attack on the Pharisaic view of korban by writing, “N o Pharisee would justify
using a semi-legal device to deprive his parents.” 37 This N P ad vocate flatly
rejects the historical accuracy of the Gosp els.
• Matt 23:1 3-36 records Je sus’ opinion o f secon d-temple Je wish lead ers in H is
woes pronounced against them. He calls them snakes and a brood of vipers
(23:33), blind guides (23:16), and blind fools (23:17; cf. Matt 15:14). T hat is
hardly a description of a “covenantal nomism” that guards the truth.
• Jesus consistently portrayed Juda ism of H is day as a religion of externals o nly.
One example is in Matt 23:27-28: “W oe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful
on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything
unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but
on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” That is just the opp osite
of NP descriptions of the covenantal nomism of first-century Judaism which says
that the system “was no t espec ially marked by hypocrisy” 38 and d escribes its
faith as “the badge of covenant membership, not something someone ‘performs’

34
About the Sermon on the Mount, Sanders writes, “Only modern New Testament scholars have
thought that part of the Sermon on the Mount expresses opposition to the Mosaic law, but that is because
they have not considered the numerous levels of legal agreement and disagreement” (Sanders, Historical
Figure 212). He misses Jesus’ point. Jesus did not speak against the law; He spoke against the scribal
and Pharisaic interpretation of the law.
35
Ibid., 216-17.
36
Ibid., 219.
37
Ibid.
38
Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism 427.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 301

as a kind of initiation test.” 39 Rather, the badge of covenant membership for the
Judaism o f Jesus’ day was com pliance with outward Pha risaic prescriptions.
• In John 8:44a Jesus addressed the Jews who opposed Him with these words:
“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out yo ur father's
desire.” This is hardly a fit description for loyal upholders of the religion of the
OT as San ders and others of the NP wa nt to po rtray Jud aism in Jesus’ da y.

The Gosp els and Acts provide m any examp les of Judaism ’s inclination toward an
external kind of religion and toward the neglect of internal matters of god liness.

First-century Judaism. New-perspective prop onents seem to have lost

sight of the fact that the Judaism of Jesus’ day was not the religion of the OT. It was
largely a product of Israel’s captivity years in Babylon. Because of circumstances
that brought a cessation of the temple sacrifices, a study of the law took the place of
the temple sacrifices. That increased attention to the law brought into existence the
office of the scribe or teacher of the law who became as important to the religious
life of the peop le as the priest had been while the temple was still standing.40 For the
most part, the scribes, most of whom were Pharisees, were the rabbis of the first
century A.D.
The new set of circumstances also created a need for a new center of
worship, the synagogue. The widespread dispersion of the Jewish people during the
exile necessitated local forms of gathering, i.e., synago gues in various locatio ns. The
synagogue became a firmly established institution wh ereve r ten me n were availab le
to form a regular congregation. The synagogue adapted older rites and observances
of Juda ism to the new cond itions und er which the peop le had to live. Synagogues
continued to functio n even after the tem ple wa s rebuilt.41
Before the cap tivity, sin was evalua ted and jud ged on a comm unal sca le
rather than ind ividually. The upro oting o f the nation destroyed the connection of
reward and punishment with national responsibility, thereby reaffirming individual
respo nsibility. Messianic hope for the advent of a political deliverer remained strong
during this period. 42
The troops of Nebuchadnezzar burned the temple of Solo mon in 586 B.C.
A second temple was begun and comp leted b y the returning rem nant in 516 B .C.,
only to be plundered by Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C. In 165 B.C. Judas
Maccabaeus cleansed and repaired the second temple. The repaired structure
remained until 37 B.C. when Herod the Great took Jerusalem and burned some of
the temple structures. In 20 -19 B .C. H erod started to rebuild the temple, work that

39
Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said 125.
40
Merrill C. Tenney, New Testament Survey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961) 82.
41
Ibid., 83-84.
42
Ibid., 85-89.
302 The Master’s Seminary Journal

was not completed until A.D. 62 or 64. It was in this rebuilt second temple that
Jesus and His disciples taught and preached and Saul of Tarsus offered sacrifices.
The Roman army destroyed this temple in A.D. 70.43
The synagogue was the social center where Jewish inhab itants of a city
gathered weekly to meet each other. It was also the educational medium for keeping
the law before the people’s attention and served as a substitute for temple worship,
which was impossible because of distance or poverty. The synagogue service
consisted of five parts: a recitation of the Shema (Deut 6:4), a ritual prayer
concluding with an opportunity for individual silent prayer, the reading of the
Scriptures, a sermon which explained the Scripture that had been read, and a blessing
pronounced by a priestly mem ber o f the con gregation. Such a sequence eventua lly
became influential in the services of the early church.44
Five of the Jewish feasts had their origin in the OT: Passover or Unleavened
Bread, Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets or the New Year, the
Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. The other two feasts originated
during the intertestamental period: the Feast of Lights, commemo rating the cleansing
of the temple by Judas Maccabaeus, and the Feast of Purim, commemo rating the
deliverance of Israel during the time of Esther.
All the sects of Judaism originated during the captivity: the Pharisees (the
largest and m ost influential), the Sadducees (the priestly party during the days of
Christ), the Essenes (an ascetic brotherhood), the Zealots (fanatical nationalists who
advocated violence to obtain liberation from Rome), the Zadokites (a priestly
element who wanted to reform the priesthood), and the Herodians (a left wing of the
Sadducees who favored perpetuation of the Herodian dynasty).45
The dispersion o f Jewish people began in 721 B .C. with the captivity of the
northern kingdom of Israel. It spread gradually until Jews w ere found in almost all
the large cities of the Mediterranea n and Middle East, including No rth Africa, and
many smaller cities too. Within the dispersion there were two distinct groups: (1)
The Hebraists retained the religous faith of Jud aism and utilized the A rama ic
language and the Hebrew customs. Paul was a Hebraist (Phil 3:5). (2) The
Hellenists were far greater in number than the Hebraists and had absorbed the
Graeco-Roman culture, but had ceased to be Jewish except in matters of faith. They
spoke only Greek or whatever happened to the be language of the area where they
settled.46
Sanders says very little if anything about such facets of first-century
Judaism as resulted from the Babylonian exile. In his 19 77 w ork o n rabbinic
literature, his “Index of Subjects” has no entry for “synagogue” which was the

43
Ibid., 89-92.
44
Ibid., 93-95.
45
H. E. Dana, The New Testament World (Nashville: Broadman, 1937) 66-139.
46
Tenney, Survey 117-20.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 303

rabb i’s main locus of operation. His entry on Pharisees is relatively brief, and the
Day of Atonement is the only feast that has an entry. One can only conclude that the
rabb inic literature consulted by Sanders is a poor source for reconstructing a picture
of first-century J udaism. And with crumbling of the foundation for the “Sanders
revolution” falls the case for a new perspective on Judaism and, consequently, that
for the new perspective on Paul also. The system falters because it is based on an
unsupported preunderstanding, not on allowing the biblical text to sp eak for itself. 47
Following the dictum of “all truth is God’s truth,” it seeks to integrate rab binic
tradition with Scripture, thereby reducing the voice of Scripture to a whisper. 48
W right describes how Sand ers reasons fro m solution to plight:

What is the key, the focal point around which everything else organizes itself? And
where did Paul begin his train of thought. The answers Sanders offers to these questions
are as follows. First, Paul began with the solution, and worked back to the problem: that
is to say, he did not . . . begin with a problem in search of a solution and then perceive
Christ as that solution, but came to the matter the other way around. His statements, and
still more his arguments, about the plight of man and the inadequacy of other methods
of salvation are not therefore the base of his scheme, but the result of it, and their various
inconsistences may thereby be more easily understood.49

Based on Paul’s alleged reasoning from the solution back to the problem solved by
the solution, Sanders and other NP advocates have built into their explanations of
Pau l’s writings an understanding of second -temple Judaism that is fraught with
misinformation about Paul’s relation ship to the Jud aism o f his day, i.e., that he cou ld
not have differed with Judaism on soteriological grounds. 50 In implementing

47
James D. G. Dunn acknowledges the role of preunderstanding in his Jesus Remembered (vol. 1
of Christianity in the Making [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003]): “In short, if we sum up the
hermeneutical issues by responding to the postmodern question ‘Is there meaning in the text?’, the
answer has to be either a qualified Yes or a qualified No. . . . The truth has to be somewhere in between,
indeed precisely in the integration of these two too simplistically separated terms, in the ‘fusion’ of these
two polarities. . . . As with the critically realist approach to the history of Christianity’s beginnings, so
with the hermeneutics of reading the NT, there is neither an absolutely objective meaning ‘in’ the text,
nor an absolutely subjective meaning imported to the text by the reader” (124-25). Wright does likewise
when he denies the existence of an antithesis between objective and subjective: “Instead of the spurious
antithesis between ‘objective’ and subjective,’ we must hold to the proper distinction between public and
private” (Contemporary Quest 80).
48
See my discussion of “General Revelation and Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Evangelical
Hermeneutics 113-40.
49
Tom [N. T.] Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861–1986, 2d ed. (New York:
Oxford University, 1988) 426 [emphasis in the original].
50
Waters expresses the same fact as follows: “It is simply not true (unless our narratives deceive us)
that there is a virtually seamless continuity between the Judaism(s) of Paul’s day and the specimen of
religion that he adopted and promoted subsequent to his encounter on the Damascus Road” (Justification
and the New Perspectives 157); cf. Richard B. Gaffin, “Paul the Theologican,” Westminster Theological
Journal 62 (2000):134.
304 The Master’s Seminary Journal

grammatical-historical princip les of interpretation, one must get the histo ry right.
Otherwise, his exegetical conclusions will be thoroughly flawed.

Allegorical Versus Literal Handling of the OT

Illustrations of such flaws in the case of the NP are plentiful. Covenantal

nomism makes much over God’s OT covenants with Israel, beginning with the
Abraham ic covenant. Wright’s words are typical:

Romans 4, in which Paul discusses the faith of Abraham, is not, as is so often suggested,
a detached ‘proof from scripture’ of an abstract doctrine. It is an exposition of the
biblical covenant theology which has now been unveiled in the gospel. Genesis 15 is the
backbone of the whole chapter—Genesis 15, that is, seen as the chapter in which the
covenant with Abraham was established in the first place.51

That cove nant, with along the other O T covenants with Israel, was Go d’s prom ise
to ethnic Israel. In the original statement of the Abramaic covenant, God promised,

Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To
the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you,
And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who
bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the
earth shall be blessed (Gen 12:1b-3).

In the context of Genesis 12, Abraham understood God to promise him a physical
lineage that would become a great nation. The fulfillment of those promises and the
promises of the other O T covenants with Israel can co me o nly to ethnic Israel,
Abraham ’s physica l desce ndants. NP proponents hav e allego rized the pro mises in
such a way that they apply to those in the body of Christ, most of whom are not
physical descendants of Abraham.
As an example of this allegorization, W right writes about “the Christian, the
fulfilled-Israe l, line” 52 and speaks of “Paul’s message to the pagan world” as “the
fulfilled-Israel message: the one crea tor G od is, through the fulfilment of his
covenant with Israel, reco nciling the wo rld to himself.” 53 Speaking of the
pred ominantly Gentile church as the “fulfilled-Israel” or the “new Israel” is in clear
violation of principles of literal fulfillment for which grammatical-historical
interpretation stands. Traditionally, non-dispensational systems have followed the
same non-literal understanding of Israel’s OT covenants, but that does not mitigate
the seriousness of the hermeneutical flaw.

51
Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said 129.
52
Ibid., 85.
53
Ibid., 91.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 305

The NP approach also necessitates the conclusion that national Israel has
no future in God’s program: “‘Resurrection’ was, in Ezekiel 37, a metaphor for the
return of Israel from exile. W hen P aul was faced with the fact of Jesus’ resurrection,
he conc luded that the return from exile had in fact happ ened . . . . It meant that Israel
had in principle been redeemed, in the person of her anointed rep resentative.” 54 For
the NP, the first coming and resurrection of Jesus were the fulfillment of Go d’s
promises to ethnic Israel. Y et God ’s promises to Israel in the OT contained no
indication of figurative language. T o read those promises in an allegorical sense is
a severe bre ach o f their plain meaning.

Single Meaning Versus M ultiple Meanings

Rom ans 1:1

In assigning more than one meaning to a word, phrase, or sentence, the NP
clearly places itself into the camp of the extreme subjectivism of the new evangelical
hermene utics. Traditional grammatical-historical principles emphasize the
importance of assigning one meaning and one meaning only to each aspect of a given
text, 55 but Wright wants at least two meanings for the word “gospel” ( ,Û"((X84@<,
euangelion) in Rom 1:1: a Jewish word of comfort regarding Israel’s return from
exile and a pagan announcement of a great victory and a coming ruler. H e wants
somehow to co mbine the two meanings:

Which is these backgrounds, then, is the appropriate one against which to read the New
Testament evidence? Is ‘the gospel’, for Paul, an Isaianic word of comfort or an imperial
proclamation?
I suggest that the antithesis between the two is a false one, based on the spurious
either-or that has misleadingly divided New Testament studies for many years.56

In calling the separate meanings a false antithesis, however, he has committed the
error of assigning two meanings to the sam e word. The two meanings are
antithetica l.
He does the same with the Greek word for “Lord” ( 5bD4@H, Kyrios),
assigning one m eaning in connection with Paul’s Jewish upbringing and another in
connection with his Greco-Roman audience.57 W ith the latter group Paul used it to
connote Jesus as lord of the whole world, but in the context of his Jewish lineage he
used the word to refer to the sovereignty of the one true God of Israel (Isa 43:23).

54
Ibid., 51.
55
For further elaboration, see Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics 141-64.
56
Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said 42-43, especially 43.
57
Ibid., 56-57.
306 The Master’s Seminary Journal

For Wright the term has both meanings in Phil 2:11.58

Romans 1:17
W right also assigns a double meaning to the word often translated
“righteousness” ( *46"4@Fb<0, dikaiosyn‘) in Paul’s writings. From a Jewish
perspective he sees “the righteousness of God” ( *46"4@Fb<0 2,@Ø, dikaisyn ‘
theou) in such passages as Rom 1:17; 3:20; 10 :3 as referring to God’s faithfulness
to His covenant with Israel (cf. Isaiah 40–55). 59 In addition, he sees the same phrase
in the same passages as a forensic term, the picture of the judge in a law court
pronouncing a defendant not guilty.60 In the former case the genitive in “the
righteousness of God” is a possessive genitive— “a quality in God”— and in the
latter case it is a subjective genitive—“an active power which goes out” from God. 61
W right sees both senses as intended in each passage,62 in other words, two meanings
for the same expression in each text, another hermeneutical flaw.
Dunn follows essentially the same line of rea soning in assigning a do uble
meaning to the expression dikaiosyn‘ theou in Rom 1:17. Like Wright, he views
dikaiosyn‘ as a relational term because of its background in Hebrew usage. In other
words, he views “‘righteousness’ as the meeting of obligations laid upon the
individual by the relationship of wh ich he o r she is part.” 63 On the basis of such a
definition, he sees the genitive in dikaiosyn‘ theou as bo th a subjective geni-
tive—“an activity of God”—and an objective genitive—“a gift bestowed by Go d.” 64
Though he defines the genitives differently from Wright, he commits the same
hermeneutical blunder as Wright by assigning two meaning s to the same expression
in the sam e text.
Regarding *46"4`T (dikaio Ç), the verb form o f dikaiosyn‘, Dunn d raws a
similar conclusion:

The other dispute . . . was whether the verb dikaioÇ means “make righteous” or “reckon
as righteous.” But once again the basic idea assumed by Paul was of a relationship in
which God acts on behalf of his human partner, first in calling Israel into and then in
sustaining Israel in its covenant with him. So once again the answer is not one or the

58
Ibid., 56-57, 66.
59
Ibid., 96-97.
60
Ibid., 97-98.
61
Ibid., 101, 103.
62
Ibid.
63
James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 341.
64
Ibid., 344.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 307

other but both.65

Since a person ne eds good works to rem ain in the covenant fam ily, in addition to
reckoning a person as righteous, Go d must also make him righteous in order for that
person to obtain deliverance from final destruction, 66 according to Dunn.

Romans 5:12, 18-19

In discussing the last clause of Rom 5:12— “because all sinned”— W right
prefers to translate the aorist tense of the verb “all sinned” (»:"DJ@<, h ‘marton)
referring to the primal act of Adam, at the same time preferring not to place too
much weight on the tense of the verb. His inclination in downplaying the tense of
the verb results from equivocating on the meaning of the clause.67 As a result, he
comes up with the following two meanings for the clause:

Paul’s meaning must in any case be both that an entail of sinfulness has spread
throughout the human race from its first beginnings and that each individual has
contributed their own share to it. Paul offers no further clue as to how the first of these
actually works or how the two interrelate.68

The two meanings are in obvious conflict with one another: does Paul refer
to personal sin or to sin as transmitted from generation to generation? W right
explicitly answers “both” and, in so doing, assigns two meanings to the passage. In
the process, he ignores what has been the clause’s predominant interpretation, that
when Adam comm itted his sin in Genesis 3, he did so as the federal (or semina l)
head of the human race. He avoids mention of A dam’s federal headship b ecause it
would involve imputation of Adam’s sin to the whole race. W hen Paul continues
this line of thought in Rom 5:18-19, the converse doctrine would be imputation of
Christ’s righteousness to believers, a doctrine that Wright staunchly rejects. He
adm its that the two verses speak of status, but interprets status as pertaining to the
last day, at the final judgment,69 not to im puted righteousness prese ntly attributed to
believers. He puts it this way: “Justification, rooted in the cross and anticipating the
verdict of the last day, gives people a new status, ahead of the performance of

65
Ibid.; cf. James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8, vol. 38A of Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word,
1988) 43, where the author writes, “dikaioén, ‘to justify’: does it mean ‘to make righteous’ or ‘to count
righteous?’ . . . Since the basic idea is of a relationship in which God acts even for the defective partner,
an action whereby God sustains the weaker partner of his covenant relationship within the relationship,
the answer again is really both. . . .”
66
Dunn, Romans 1–8 39.
67
N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in vol. 10 of The New Interpreters’ Bible (Nashville:
Abingdon, 2002) 526.
68
Ibid., 527.
69
Ibid., 529.
308 The Master’s Seminary Journal

approp riate deed s.” 70 In accord with covenantal nomism, he sees the necessity of
good deed s to comple te the justification. Absent from W right’s discussion is any
reference to the universal guilt of man through Adam, which would create the need
for Christ’s imputed righteo usness. 71
At this point in his discussion of Rom 5:19 W right notes his rejection of the
view that Jesus’ perfect obedience to the law (His active obedience) acquired for
Him a righteo usness that is then imp uted to those in Christ through His death on the
cross (His passive obedience).72 Drawing upon Isa 53:11 regarding the suffering
servant of the Lord, he sees Christ’s o bed ience in death as an act to rep lace Israel’s
disobedience.73 For Wright, Christ’s life of obedien ce has no place in H is
representation of those in Christ. O n the co ntrary, ho wever, to divo rce C hrist’s
passive obedience from His active obedience renders His passive obedience
meaningless. Rom ans 5:19 p oints to Adam’s life of disobedience as representative
of the whole human race and to Christ’s life of obedience, including His death, as
representative of all believers. The imputation of a righteousness derived both from
Christ’s active and from His passive obedience contradicts NP teaching.
The conspicuous habit of the N P to assign m ultiple meaning s to single
terms, phrases, or clauses in an individual passage signals the utter confusion
generated by the system as a whole. Along with its assignment of multiple meanings,
the NP also disregards b iblical co ntext.

Disregard for Biblical Context

Representatives of the NP repeatedly violate the hermeneutical principle of

giving closest attention to the immediate context of a given passage. They invariab ly
jump from passage to passage without a thorough consideration of the various
contexts. The result is that they read into a given pa ssage so mething that is not in
that passage’s immediate context, thereby violating the original author’s intention
and the original reader’s understanding of what was written.74 Terry warns against
such a practice: “We must avoid the danger of ove rstepp ing in this matter [i.e., the
matter of using cross-references too carelessly]” and “There may be a likeness of
sentiment without any real parallelism [i.e., in regard to verb al parallels between
separate passage s].” 75

70
Ibid.
71
Waters, Justification and the New Perspectives 182.
72
Wright, “Romans” 529.
73
Ibid.
74
Elsewhere I have called this “hermeneutical hopskotch” (Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics
363).
75
Milton S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New
Testaments (1885; reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1947) 222-23.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 309

Several citations will illustrate violations of this principle that are very
widespread among N P pro ponents.

“Gospel” in Rom 1:1, 16

Regarding “gospel” ( ,Û"((X84@<, euangelion) in Rom 1:1 , W right
comm ents, “In Paul’s Jewish world, the word looked back to Isa 40:9 and 52:7,
where a messenger was to bring to Jerusalem the good news of Babylon’s defeat, the
end of Israel’s exile, and the persona l return o f YH W H to Zion.” 76 W right dra ws his
meaning of the word from an OT context, a prophecy of Isaiah regarding national
Israel, to define a meaning in Rom 1:1, a letter addressed to a church composed
pred ominantly of Gentiles. He does this, of course, to support his theory of
covenantal nomism.
Traditional grammatical-historical herm eneutical principles d ictate that this
is a use of cross-references which is too careless b ecause no real parallelism exists
between the two passages. The proper approach would have been to draw the
meaning of the word from Rom 1:9, 15, 16, passages in the same chapter. In Rom
1:15 Paul expresses his w illingness to preach the gospel to the pre dom inantly G entile
church in Rome, and in 1:16 he defines the gospel as the power of God for salvation
to everyo ne who believes, to the Jew first and also to the G reek. H ow would
Gentiles in Rome relate to the end o f Israel’s exile and YH W H’s return to
Jerusalem? Wright would contend that covenantal nomism, the alleged rabbinic-
based system, ha d already by the year A.D . 55 p erme ated G entile thinking in
faraway Ro me. Such a theory is at best farfetched and at worst ridiculous.
Romans 1:16 indicates clearly the individual salvific connotation of Pa ul’s
gosp el. To read that verse otherwise involves a redefining no t only of “gospel” but
also of “salvation.” W right would have his readers believe that justification was not
“so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as
about the church,” 77 not how to become a part of the people of God as it is about how
one can tell who is a part of that community. He can hardly say contextually that
justification is not salvific when the word for salvation is in this very context, but he
does so anyway by defining salvation as the rescue of Israel from pagan oppression, 78
a concept that is com pletely foreign to the context of the book of Rom ans. National
salvation is hardly in view when Paul individualizes its recipients with the words
“everyone who be lieves” (1:16). Such a series of red efinitions stems from a
preunderstanding imposed on the text of Romans, not from the context of Romans
itself.

76
Wright, “Romans” 415; cf. idem, What Saint Paul Really Said 40-44.
77
Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said 119.
78
Wright, “Romans” 424.
310 The Master’s Seminary Journal

Romans 2:6, 14-15, 28-29

W right multiplies his contextual errors in comments on Romans 2. Two
illustrations must suffice. (1) He treats vv. 1-16 as dealing primarily with the
judgment of God even though the chapter falls squarely in a sec tion of the epistle
(1:18–3:20) that emphasizes universal human sinfulness.79 The section deals with
mankind’s guilt, but in it Wright finds proof that justification is based on works,80 a
clear contradiction to a later section where Paul deals directly with the subject o f
justification. Romans 3:20 says plainly that no one will be justified by works.
Regard ing Rom 2:6, W right writes, “To the surprise . . . of those whose traditional
readings of the letter lead them to exp ect that P aul will here sim ply declare that all
are sinners, so that justification can be by faith alone apart from works of the law,
he announces on the contrary that justification will be on the basis of works (v.
6). . . .”81 Regarding 2:13, he writes, “For the moment, he is content to assert the
point: Israel’s ethnic privilege, backed up by possession of To rah, will be of no avail
at the final judgment if Israel has not kept Torah. Justification, at the last, will be on
the basis of performance, not po ssession .” 82 He discounts the possibility that Paul,
in the middle of his discussion of human guilt, introduces a hypothetical or
theoretical illustration of a human feat that is absolutely impossible to accomplish.83
In essence, he admits the contextual isolation of his position when he writes,
“Throughout the section so far Pa ul has been saying things that cry out for further
explanation, which he will provide as the letter moves forward .” 84
Also, in his disregard for immediate context, he finds references to justified
Gentiles in chapter 2, before the epistle has reached the point of discussing
justification. Regarding 2:14-15, he writes, “[H]ere he is hinting at a them e he will
explore later in the letter, namely that the people in question are Christian Gentiles
(vv. 14-15— indeed, Christian Jews and Gentiles alike (vv. 7, 10).” 85 Regarding
2:28-29, he writes, “Paul now transfers the name, and the validation, to a different
group. In the previous ve rses he has referred to Gentiles who, though uncircum-
cised, keep the law’s regulations; he can only mean G entile Christians, since this
passage, explaining what has gone before, is clearly about membership in the new,

79
Ibid., 438.
80
Ibid. He writes, “[H]e [i.e., Paul] announces on the contrary that at the last assize justification
will be on the basis of works (v. 6), and that there will not only be tribulation and wrath for all
wrongdoers, but glory, honor, immortality, eternal life, and peace for all who seek for these things in the
appropriate way (vv. 7, 10).”
81
Ibid., 439.
82
Ibid., 440.
83
Ibid., 441.
84
Ibid.
85
Ibid.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 311

or renewed, co venant.” 86 All this results from im porting his covenantal nomistic
preunderstanding into Roma ns 2, which in turn results in his importing teaching from
later parts of Romans into the passage.
(2) In 2:17-29 he applies references to Israel’s sinfulness corporately rather
than individually when he writes about 2:17, “We should beware of the natural
tendency, within our individualistic culture, to assume that when Paul uses the
second-person singular (‘If you, singular, call youself a Jew’) he is referring to a
typical individ ual.” 87 He se es this as a reference to “the national bo ast of ethn ic
Israel.” In so doing, he masks the utter corruption of first-century Judaism by
focusing on Israel’s failure as a nation to be a light in the world . Yes, Israel did fail
in her national responsibility, but at this point in developing his case for universal
guilt, Paul is speaking of individual sins within Judaism o f that day.
Covenantal nomism would have rea ders believe that Judaism was not so
corrupt that widespread stealing, adultery, robbery of temples, and the like existed
within the system, that it was a system that kept faith and works in proper balance.
Yet that is not the picture of Judaism derived elsewhere, nor is it the picture Paul
paints here. Wright’s allegiance to the Sanders-defined picture of a refined religious
system forces him to read into the p resent context elements that are not present,
elements that Paul certainly did not intend.

Romans 3:21-26
Regard ing Rom ans 3, W right writes,

Paul’s purpose in 3:21-26 is not, then, to give a full “doctrine of the atonement,” a
complete account of how God dealt with the sins of the world through the death of Jesus.
Rather, as one part of his argument that on the cross the righteousness of God was
unveiled, he is content to state, not completely how, but simply that this had been
accomplished.88

W right’s interpretation of “the righteousness of Go d through faith in Jesus C hrist”

in v. 22a is equivalent to “God ’s saving justice through the faithfulness of Jesus
Christ.” 89 He arrives at such an unusual rendering o f *46"4@Fb<0 (dikaiosyn‘,
“righteousness”) and B\FJ4H (pistis, “faith”) by alluding to Paul’s reference to
Abraham in Galatians 3, which he use s as a springboard to pull in the Ab raham ic
covenant of Genesis 15:5, 13-16.90 Admitting that the word “covenant” does not

86
Ibid., 449.
87
Ibid., 445.
88
Ibid., 467.
89
Ibid., 465, 470.
90
Ibid., 464.
312 The Master’s Seminary Journal

occur in this immediate context91— nor d oes it occur anywhere in Roma ns until
11:27— W right seeks to build a case that 3:21–4:25 affirms that what God has done
in Jesus the M essiah is the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham.92 Paul does refer
to Abraham in Rom 4:1 , 2, 3, 9, 12, 16 and to the promise God gave him (Rom 4:13,
14, 16, 20), but emphasizes the importance of Abraham as example of “faith,” a
word that occurs 35 times in Romans and nine times in chapter 4.
To arrive at such an interpretation of Rom 3:21-26, W right must redefine
“righteousness”—a word occu rring 30 times in Romans— as well as “faith” in ways
that are foreign to the context in which they occur. As one has put it, he must “strain
Paul through an imposed biblical-theological grid supposedly deduced from the
Second Temple literature.” 93 In fact, in seeking to pro ve his point regarding 3:21-26,
W right pulls in Leviticus 1 6, 4 M accabees 17:2 2, and Isa 52 :13– 53:1 2 to suppo rt his
rendering of Jesus’ faithfulness,94 all of this to the neglect of the context of Romans
3, which so plainly speaks of human sin and guilt and God’s remedy of an imputed
righteousness available to people (Rom 3:9-21, 23 -26).

Romans 3:27-28
To continue his “imposed biblical-theological grid” in Rom 3:27-28,
W right must disregard the immediate context again. He admits that the “therefore”
in 3:27 norm ally would draw a conclusion from the section just completed in 3:21-
26, but since that sense doe s not suit his superimposed scheme, he must refer the
“therefore” all the way back to Rom 2:17-24,95 a very unnatural leap to a faraway
context.
He says that in 3:28 Paul resolves the antithesis between “the law of works”
and “the law of faith” by declaring that a person is ‘justified by faith apart from
works of the law.” In this verse Wright reports “on a calculation that has taken
place, not in the present passage, but elsewhere, which he will shortly unveil.” 96 In
essence, this commentator admits that he must go outside the immediate context to
derive meanings for these two verses, mean ings to accommodate his preunderstand-
ing of first-century Judaism.

Rom ans 4:4-5

W right’s preference for noncontextual factors in his interpretation comes

91
Ibid.
92
Ibid.
93
Waters, Justification and the New Perspectives 183.
94
Wright, “Romans” 467-68.
95
Ibid., 480.
96
Ibid., 481.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 313

through in a striking fashion in Rom 4:4-5.97 In his system of thought, faith is not the
way one becom es a Christian but is a badge of covenant membership,98 and imputed
righteousness is nonexistant. 99 In vv. 4-5 he acknowledges the bookkeeping
metaphor of employment and wage-earning in vv. 4-5 a, but says Paul reverts to a
metaphor of the lawcourt and the covenant in v. 5b.100 In connection with 4:3 in the
same chapter, he assure s his readers that “righteousness” has no thing to d o with
moral good ness and that “faith” is not a mean s for obtaining that “righteousness.”
Rather, he says, “righteousness” is the status of being a member of the covenant, and
“faith” is “the badge, the sign, that reveals that status because it is its key
symptom.” 101
He rejects reading v. 5 as a direct contrast of v. 4, the picture that
‘[w]orkers get paid not by grace b ut by de bt, but believers get paid not by debt but
by grace.” 102 He prefers the following explanation:

The two sentences are not in fact balanced, partly because Paul pulls himself out of the
bookkeeping metaphor halfway through v. 5 and returns to his main points, the lawcourt
and the covenant. What Paul says in v. 5 not only contrasts with v. 4 (“working” and
“not working”), but also deconstructs the whole frame of thought: The alternative to
“working” is to “trust the one who justifies the ungodly.”103

His unstated reaso n for reading in a deconstruction betwe en v. 5a and v. 5b is his

embracing of the N P on first-century Juda ism as charac teristic of the Pauline
perspective also. Neither Judaism nor Paul taught justification by faith. With them
justification was only a badge of covenant memb ership, and final justification— i.e.,
vindication—was by works. To acc ept v. 5 as a straightforwa rd reversal of v. 4
would teach justification by faith, thereby condemning the NP to deconstruction.
In applying the term “ungodly” to Abraham in v. 5, Wright points out
Abraham ’s pagan background as explaining that ungodliness, thereby acknowledging

97
Waters, Justification and the New Perspectives 147-48, 161-62.
98
Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said 125; his words are, “Faith is the badge of covenant
membership, not something someone ‘performs’ as a kind of initiation test.”
99
Ibid., 98; his words are, “If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatever to
say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either
the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed
across the courtroom. . . . To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is
simply a category mistake. That is not how the language works.”
100
Wright, “Romans” 491-92.
101
Ibid., 491.
102
Ibid.
103
Ibid., 491-92.
314 The Master’s Seminary Journal

the moral connotations of “righteousness” which he has denied on the page before.104
He further complicates his own inconsistencies by noting that God established H is
covenant with Ab raham while he was still ungodly and by continuing to contend that
faith is a badge of covenant membership.105 As W aters notes, “It may be, then, that
W right considers ‘ungodly’ to mean an imperfectly covenantally faithful perso n.” 106
Historically speaking, G od’s covenant with Abraham came before
Abraham ’s justification by faith. T he initial statement of the covenant came in
Genesis 12, b ut the statem ent of A braham’s justification d id not come until Genesis
15. So a span of three chapters of Genesis separates Abraham’s covenant
mem bersh ip and his receiving of the alleged indispensable badge of covenant
membership. In Ro m 4:4 -5 the NP run s into a hopeless quagmire from which escape
is impo ssible, all because the system reads an ill-defined understand ing of Judaism
into the passage.

Romans 6:1-11
As a follow-up to his discussio n of 5:12-21, W right asks, “Do Christians
find themselves now in the Adam solidarity or in the Christ solidarity?” 107 He
answers, “Christians, he [i.e., Paul] says, have left the old solidarity, and b elong to
the new; they must behave accordingly. The transfer is effected by dying and rising
with the Messiah. And the event in which this dying and rising is accomp lished is
bap tism.” 108
W right labors the point that water baptism, not faith, is the means by which
anyone becomes a member of the covenant community. Paul, he says, “understood
baptism in terms of the new exodus,” having made such a link already in 1 Cor 10:2
when he spoke of the wilderness generation as “baptized into Moses in the cloud and
in the sea.” 109 Wright views Christians as a “new exodus” people and that baptism
was “both a dramatic symbol of the new exodus and a sign of Jesus’ death.” 110 Faith
must be based on wa ter baptism in his view of Rom 6:11.111 Viewing Christians as
a new-exodus people does not com e from Paul in the context of Rom ans 6; it is
rather a product of Wright’s NP dream world.
In para lleling Christians with the wilderness generation under M oses,
however, Wright fails to note a significant difference. The generation under Moses

104
Ibid., 492.
105
Ibid.
106
Waters, Justification and the New Perspectives 148.
107
Wright, “Romans” 533.
108
Ibid.
109
Ibid. 533-34.
110
Ibid., 534.
111
Ibid., 535.
 Hermeneutics of the New Perspective on Paul 315

passed through the Red Sea bone-dry (cf. 1 Cor 10:2); with the new-wilderness
generation—as Wright calls Christians—baptism calls upon them to be drenched
from head to toe. It is also notab le that just after Paul dismisses one external
rite—circumcision—as meaningless in relation to the covenant (Rom 2 :25-29),
W right would have him introducing another external rite as a means for becoming
a covenant member. Water does not appear in the context of Romans 6, nor does
water baptism play a prominent role in Paul’s writings elsewhere (cf. 1 Cor 1:14-17 ).
Suggesting that water baptism is the means for becoming a covenant
member is another example of reading into a context elements that are foreign to the
writer’s thoughts.

The Hermeneutical Upshot of the New Perspective

A review of a few of the numerous hermeneutical escapades of the NP has

illustrated the utter bankruptcy of the system. It has draw n heav ily upon a certain
preunderstanding about first-century Judaism and has on that basis proceeded to
follow an inevitable trail of wrongheaded conclusions in variou s portions of Paul’s
writings. It has fallen into the fallacious pattern of subjectivism promoted by the
new evangelical hermeneutics rather than applying time-tested principles of
grammatical-historical interpretation.
A word of caution is in order regarding those who have been somewhat
swayed by the NP, those who say they see some value in it, but who have not bought
into the system as a whole. Anyone who has embraced even a small aspect of the NP
has endorsed the starting point of Sanders’ covenantal nomism which defines the
nature of first-century Judaism. That person cannot free himself from the system’s
degenerative hermene utical approach, because without Sand ers’ covenantal nomism
the NP does not exist. A person cannot embrace traditional grammatical-historical
principles and take even a first step toward the N P. T he two approaches to Pauline
literature are utterly incompatible.

Brief Summary of New P erspective Errors

The following summary of the articles derived from the W inter 20 05 F aculty
Lecture Series states some of the erroneous positions advocated either explicitly or
implicitly by the New Perspective on P aul. Whenever sound, grammatical-historical
principles of biblical interpr etation are violated, error is the inevitable result. NP
proponents do not always agree with one another. In cases where they disagree
amo ng them selves, the refore, I have tried to reflect the po sition of N . T. W right in
the summary, because he is finding widest positive acceptance among contemporary
evangelicals.

1. First-century Judaism was not a salvation-by-works religion.

2. First-century Judaism was not especially marked by hypocrisy, petty legalism,
316 The Master’s Seminary Journal

self-serving, self-deceiving casuistry, arrogance, an d a lack of co nfidence in

God.
3. God has chosen Israel and given them the law which He enables them to keep.
4. Until the death and resurrection of Christ, by virtue of God’s election, any
physical descendant of A braham is a member of the covenant people and thereby
justified.
5. Tho se who maintain the covenantal nomism relationship by obedience are the
ones who will be saved.
6. First-century Judaism had a correct balance between faith, grace, and works and
was not just a religion of externals.
7. Covenantal nomism provides a means of atonement if a person does break the
Mosaic law.
8. Paul retained his covenantal nomism after his Damascus Road experience.
9. From that po int on, his mission was to d ispense with circ umcision, sab bath
observance, and dietary restrictions of the Mosaic law as boundaries that limited
who could be a member of the covenant people.
10. Human beings do not have a sin nature because of the original sin of Adam.
11. Paul did no t have an introsp ective conscience, i.e., no guilt because of his
sinfulness
12. Guilt was not expressed in Pa ul’s writings, but was introduced by Augustine and
Luther.
13. Justification by faith and imputed righteousness was read into Paul by Augustine,
Luther, W esley, and Calvin b ecause of their contempo rary situations.
14. Paul was a Shammaite who retained covenantal nomism in his theology but
added the Lordship of Christ to the system.
15. Faith is not the means of justification or of joining the covenant com munity; it
is rather a badge of covenant membership. One joins the covenant com munity
through water baptism.
16. Justification is a process that is completed only at the final judgment; therefore,
no one has eternal security.
17. Final justification is based on works of ob edien ce to the Mosaic law so that any
justification a person enjoys at present is only preliminary and can be reversed.